Far it be for me to argue with Gelfand, but, having done some extensive tutoring, I think that sometimes the best way to "turn these peculiarities into advantages" is to direct the student to a more suitable career path. Face it, some people just naturally suck at math. Sure, they can be drilled to do well on high-school math exams, with many times the effort an average student spends on it (that's what Kumon is great at, drills upon more drills with a gradual progress toward System I-level mastery). But this is a waste of time and effort for everyone involved. Their time and effort is more productively spent on creative writing, dancing, debating or whatever else these "peculiarities" hint at. Math is no exception, of course, it gets all the attention as a hard course because of the unreasonably high requirements relative to other subjects.